September 23, 2006

Following Anousheh

Thank you to everyone reading this blog and taking the time to share your thoughts and enthusiasm.

I guess I’m just like you are… excited, happy and inspired by Anousheh’s trip… and ready to go someday myself. The really cool thing about Anousheh’s flight and this blog is that she is one of us! A person with a dream! Whether you’re a young girl, a mom, an engineer, American, Iranian, from Dallas or just a dreamer… you can imagine taking this flight into space someday.

In the early days of the space program it was really the “fighter jock”… the person with the right stuff, who trained for a decade for a chance to fly, the person with a few PhDs in math and physics, or the test pilot…

But it doesn’t need to be that way. The same way that millions of people can explore the oceans, mountains or the rain forests, it’s time to make it possible to allow the general public to explore space. That’s what X PRIZE is all about. That’s why Space Adventures was created. That’s what Anousheh is doing… paving the path for many, eventually thousands, to follow in her footsteps.

There can be no doubt that it will happen, it’s only a matter of when. Humans have always explored — it is in our genes. When we find a new frontier, a few pioneers travel first… then the masses follow. Whether it was the European travels to the Americas, or the American Colonists opening the West… dreams, pioneers and eventually families followed. Space is no exception.

It is during our lifetimes that we will irreversibly open space for humanity. After all, everything that we hold of value on Earth… metals, minerals, real estate, and energy are in infinite quantities in space. I like to say that the Earth is a “crumb” in a supermarket filled with resources. The first Trillionaires will be made in space, but most importantly the resources to help humanity grow without destroying this precious planet we live on will be made available.

In reality, the greatest benefits for exploring space are not yet known… how could they be? To borrow from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, to try to pre-judge what we will discover in space is like asking the first colony of lungfish crawling onto land to predict fire. Fire is one of the most important technologies ever, but something totally unknown to the underwater dwellers.

What will be the equivalent of fire that humanity will discover as we travel toward the stars?

44 Comments

I couldn’t agree with you more, Peter! Throughout history there has been a progression in frontier exploration: the first to explore are the brilliant, the unique, the people with, as you say, “the right stuff.” After they have blazed the trail, the rich follow and, once enough of those people have gone and the cost comes down, the way is opened to those of us with normal jobs and normal paychecks. Anousheh is playing a vital role in this progression and thanks to her and others like her, one day we will all be able to follow in her footsteps, just like many of us followed in those of Columbus and all the other explorers who made it to the New World.

Keep blogging and keep inspiring, Anousheh (and Peter too!), it literally means the world to us.

Good comments. I like the last part. We can’t imagine the benefits from space before humanity really experience it.
For the time being, even if a huge amount of resources are available in space, the cost of reaching these resources doesn’t make the venture worth it. Then, we have the problem of travelling and working in an hostile environment where expensive life-support systems are necessary…
My comments may sound negative but i don’t intend to be. I’m just thinking there is still a long way to go before we are in the space age.

Space… The final frontier. These are the voyages of Anousheh Ansari. Her mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go were no (wo)man has gone before!

[Hi Ms Ansari, congratulation. you are a role model and we are proud because you are an Iranian.Please introduce yourself more. And a question: did your father work in Masjed-Soleyman for Oil Company? thank you]

[Hi dear Anousheh, I read your blogs. I don’t know if you have time to read this comment or not. Anyway, I wish our Earth was in peace and there was no war. Maybe up there, you are closer to God. So please pray for everybody especially for Iran and Iranians.Maybe God hears you. If you have time please read my weblog and write me a comment. wish you health and success. your fan, Hamed from Tabriz]

MRS.ANSARI
GOOD MORNING OR GOOD NIGHT I DO NOT KNOW WHICH ONE IS APPLICABLE THERE NOW IN THE SPACE
BUT EVERY SECOND AND MOMENT ARE GOOD FOR YOU, YOU ARE ONE OF THE EXCELLENT HUMAN I HAVE KNOWN YET,THE MESSAGE YOU SENT TO ALL OVER
THE WORLD IS VERY VALUABLE, FOR THOSE LIKE ME IS A MARVEL
AGAIN I PRODE OF YOU AS AN IRANIAN,

THERE IS DIVINE BEAUTY IN LEARNING, JUST AS THERE IS HUMAN BEAUTY IN TOLERANCE.
TO LEARN MEANS TO ACCEPT THE POSTULATE THAT LIFE DID NOT BEGIN AT MY BIRTH. OTHERS HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE ME, AND I WALK IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS.
THE BOOKS I HAVE READ
WERE COMPOSED BY GENERATIONS OF FATHERS AND SONS, MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, TEACHERS AND DISCIPLES.
I AM THE SUM TOTAL OF THEIR EXPERIENCES, THEIR QUESTS. AND SO ARE YOU!!!

I’m an old man and have traveled all over this world, been across every ocean and sea and would do it all over again if I had the time and the money.

But, now I’m charged with and loving it, the care and raising of my Sweet Sarah, who is now 5 1/2 yo. She loves anything to do with airplanes, helicopters, spaceships and has watched Stargate and other Sci Fi with me since she was a baby. I just know in my heart that she will someday go into space and it will be the pinicle of her life long dreams.

It will be our children and grandchildren’s adventure. Who knows what great things they will accomplish?

The first astronauts were test pilot jockeys. With the exception om Schmidt, as I recall, there were no scientists until later.

Now certain highly trained and approved individuals can be astronauts, as well as those who can pre-qualify by putting up the requisite milllions neccesary to do the training and try to hitch a ride on up.

No thing is inevitable when it comes to humanity’s flight to the stars, much less any given individual’s potential to reach them.

The potential is there. But what about the challenges in the form of technological/ecospheric destruction of our only habitat, this earth?

Just making it thru the next century and a half will require a dedicated and common effort of the gathered nations of earth.

How can we make this posssible? All around us we see that most economic/political energy goes to the pursuit of greedily insane hegomonic ideologies.

The way to the stars requires more than blood sweat and tears, but also peace on earth.

(We will be very thankful if somebody forwards this message to Mrs. Ansari, A.S.A.P please)

Dear Mrs. Ansari,
Thanks a lot for your kind attention to the amateur radio operators of Iran and the nice QSO we had on sep. 24 by ARISS.
As you had desired, we have arranged a group of students of to come here tomorrow for a talk with you. We will video cam the whole talk so we can show it in schools to all the other students who can’t manage to be here tomorrow.On Monday, Sept. 25, we will be ready to contact you from 07:15 to 07:25 UTC and from 08:50 to 09:00 UTC.
Also in our talk tomorrow, we’d appreciate it if you would give all the Iranian students a message on improving in space sciences.
Same as today, we will call RS0ISS at 144.490 MHz (Region 3 uplink) and we’ll try to hear you at 145.800 MHz (Worldwide downlink).
We hope to hear you again from ISS.
Thanks in advance.
73 de EP3RF

That little dot of our planet in the vastness of the universe is us. It’s everything we know. It’s everything we love. It’s everything we hate. It’s the home of humanity, a pale blue speck in the vastness of space. It’s pretty dinky when you think about it. It would be great if we all could just get along in this world.

Very nice topic, thanks.
Same as you I am sure that sometime human could find the value of space and also other planets and they will travel there and when they are looking at past they will laugh at our dreams, like what we did by looking at decades.

Humans have mysterious power for discovering everything. Some like Mrs. Ansari they are so curious about discovering space and some here they love to find out how human brains works…
We have too much to discover.

I love to know that after discovering all these important issues and far away planets what will be happen, could we find the key answers of existence!

dear mrs ansari. It is a previlage to write to you and express my deepest emostions for you and for what you accomlished.I bacame teary eyed when i heard you are carrying an iranian flag along while in space.I am proud to know that you never fogot where you came from.It sends a big message to all those so called big shots who have fogotten the mother land.keep the name of iran as high as the space itself.We iranians can do anything we want to. We just have to dream.I love you from the bottom of my heart.KEEP THE DREAMS AND HOPES OF ALL LITTLE GIRLS ALIVE………

man Sammira hastam. I am 9 years old. I love studying about space. My dad is from Iran and he is an Aerospace Engineer. I’m always fascinated by the differences of life on earth and in space. What was the most exciting moment when you left Earth? Did you get scared and homesick? When you were a little girl did any of your thoughts about space come near to what you have experienced now? What is it that you will treasure a lot from your experience aside from experiencing weightlessness? Were you able to sleep the first night? Did you get confused with telling the time? Will you please answer my email so I can share it with my classmates? Thank you.

The only difference between space colonization and the colonization of the americas is that this time the slaves are rockets and computers and there are no natives to slaughter. Finally, human endeavor without bloodshed!

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